Caption: "Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore": TTC A14-class PCC 4779, operating on a farewell fantrip for the TTC's fleet of secondhand Kansas City streetcars, is pictured facing west on College Street at Bay Street beside the iconic Eaton's College Street store. The 65 Dodson route exposure isn't one of the TTC's, rather, it is from a Kansas City rollsign installed in 4779 specially for the occasion. The usual selection of 70's automotive iron pictured lined up outside Eatons wouldn't be complete without an AMC Gremlin and VW Bug thrown into the mix.

The 30 TTC A14-class PCC streetcars (4750-4779, built 1946-47) were purchased secondhand from Kansas City in 1957 and were the last group of secondhand PCC's acquired by the TTC, but due to their condition they were the first ones to be retired and sold off. Most were resold to MUNI (San Franciso) and SEPTA (Philadelphia) for continued use, with the last one (4779) retiring a few months after this photo was taken. The TTC would continue to operate much of its other secondhand and purchased-new PCC cars in regular service until the last ones were retired in the 90's.

Opened in 1930, the Eaton's College Street store was originally envisioned to be a much grander complex (including a headquarters office tower) until the Great Depression caused Eatons to scale it down. The seven-floor Art-Deco department store building housed 600,000 square feet of retail space dedicated to house furnishings, furniture, fabrics and wall hangings, electrical appliances, China and linens, and included fashion and apparel specialty shops, a beauty salon, a portrait studio, a fine art gallery room, and an Art Moderne-styled 7th floor featuring a special restaurant and auditorium (to give an idea of how scaled-down it was, the original plans called for 5 million square feet of retail space!). The TTC for a time ran special inter-store Eatons shuttle buses between their flagship Queen Street and College Street stores.

But at the time of this photo Eaton's was well on its way to completing the first phase of its massive Eaton Centre development, including a new flagship department store with one million square feet of retail space off Dundas that opened a few months later in February 1977 and replaced both their Queen and College locations. Happily, the College Street store was spared the wrecking ball when it was sold off and turned into commercial retail and office space. Much of the heritage elements of the building have been preserved, including the restored 7th floor restaurant and auditorium used as a special events venue.

J. Bryce Lee photo, Dan Dell'Unto collection.